Wow, I figured some of you would be all over this. Maybe you've missed what I'm telling you here. OS2's android player runtime has some buried hidden things in it which you can find by installing ghost commander app from the app world. One of these android nasties appears to be an anti piracy monitoring service, which a lot of android users are complaining that not only is it intrusive, but eats battery.

I'm don't have any side agendas, I just want this explored and investigated thoroughly. I think it's important because this stuff hidden in the update has been a much discussed known problem for android users for quite a while.

It kills me. People are posting like rabid dogs about netflix, but when it's pointed out that the Android runtime in the new OS might have a lot of bloatware or background services using resources and sucking battery, the response is apathy. Amazing. I should set up some con jobs here, the atmosphere is ripe.

i have a htc evo android phone, when i first got it, the phone BARELY made it from 7am-5pm my workday, it would be like 15% with some use through at the end of the day.

today after owning it for almost 2x years and gone through the OS menu settings and disabling alot of stuff, along with the apps i have gotten my battery life to display 85% after a full 7-5pm workday with less use then before but the battery life is dramatically different.

the android OS did NOT need a mastermind to get it to co-operate, all the settings where there, just not labeled easily for the average user to click into, and alot of hidden menus are found AFTER you click into a menu and hit menu AGAIN,

this is why im so mad with android just being ported over to playbook, 1/2 of these apps function correctly because they did not correctly port the back, home, menu button that all android devices have and are hard programmed in. And if they did, they may have ported one menu but not another menu and then your just SOL and have to close the app and restart it because you literally cant navigate backwards

I noticed that too. Going to be interesting once the honeymoon is over and the wake-ups set in about this runtime. I get the feeling there's not really that many android users here, but my hackles went up right away when I started rooting around in the system itself and saw how much crud is there now that shouldn't be.

OK Help. I looked at the Google link and there is far too much going on. What exactly is this issue in layman's terms. If you explain the importance more people are likely to respond. Not all Crackberry members are technical geniuses.

OK DRM, or Digital Rights Media is a form of anti piracy for digital media such as ebooks, music, video. DRM Protected Content Storage is a service that runs in the background to monitor your device for media with DRM protection in it.

How this is annoying people is the restrictions even if you legally purchase something. Say you buy an ebook, song, video that has DRM using an app which has it's own store and player. Now you think you own that purchase right? Now you decide, "I'd really like that ebook on my playbook so I can read it with the Book Reader app!". Well you can't. You may think you own that ebook because you paid for it, but you only own it if you use the app and device you bought it with. Actually, I think the book reader app even says something about DRM in it's app world description.

But. Wait, it gets better. Not only are you being restricted, but android root users have also been reporting that the android service of this is using some battery and memory resources. I found out this is now on PlayBook using the Free Ghost Commander file manager app. There's a link to all the android components in the Home section of that app called Applications, and this DRM thing is just one of all the things I found sitting in there.

That is just another reason for me not to use the Android services. There was one app for my A/V receiver that I wanted and tried-didn't work.
RIM has something similar going with the video store. I have no way to play the videos other then the PB. The ISMV file is not recognized by anything I have found.
I don't blame android RIM or the content providers for drm headaches. The root cause is media thieves.

DRM solutions

Originally Posted by omniusovermind

OK DRM, or Digital Rights Media is a form of anti piracy for digital media such as ebooks, music, video. DRM Protected Content Storage is a service that runs in the background to monitor your device for media with DRM protection in it.

How this is annoying people is the restrictions even if you legally purchase something. Say you buy an ebook, song, video that has DRM using an app which has it's own store and player. Now you think you own that purchase right? Now you decide, "I'd really like that ebook on my playbook so I can read it with the Book Reader app!". Well you can't. You may think you own that ebook because you paid for it, but you only own it if you use the app and device you bought it with. Actually, I think the book reader app even says something about DRM in it's app world description.

But. Wait, it gets better. Not only are you being restricted, but android root users have also been reporting that the android service of this is using some battery and memory resources. I found out this is now on PlayBook using the Free Ghost Commander file manager app. There's a link to all the android components in the Home section of that app called Applications, and this DRM thing is just one of all the things I found sitting in there.

I have been on the unpopular side of this issue several times in the past but would still offer you some arguments on behalf of owners of digital content. I work for a small custom publisher producing texts with high price tags that offer significant resale view alue to those who could receive them free of DRM protection. As such we apply DRM to the electronic versions of our products which, although significantly lower in price, still have the same value. That being said, we also recognize that it is only fair that users of these products should have them available in the same way as out paper texts. So, just like you wanting to put on a new book cover, we allow them to be downloaded into town devices at the same time (Adobe allows up to six simultaneous devices) and if you trade in or stop using your device you can stop using that device on your account and download to another. You are able to print each page of your text, just like you may want to photocopy pages from the paper version. What you are not able to do is print the whole text or duplicate the files as this is akin to scanning or copying the text which in our experience often leads to its illegal sale.
One of our challenges has been to facilitate the reading of this DRM'd ebook in a way that does not negatively impact the readers experience. Tablet implementations, including the playbook have been particularly contentious as they are still a very immature platform and do not yet have many of the usability tools in place that traditional computing devices have. This is a very important conversation to have and I thank you for raising it. Perhaps someone at RIM can fill us in on how they approached this issue with respect to the Android player and their OS 2 implementation.

Thanks bob, that was pretty informative from a sales point of view. To be quite honest, I personally am pretty neutral about the concept of drm from a sales standpoint.. But unless it can be confirmed with 100% certainty that it isn't using even a tiny amount of system resources, then I'm completely against it.

I'm going to take a wild stab here in guessing you're basing that on pretty much no knowledge of the topic at all. I love opinions when they're firmly grounded in reliable data like guesses and personal feelings.

.... I don't blame android RIM or the content providers for drm headaches. The root cause is media thieves.

Where as, of course, if there were no "media thieves" the world would be sweetness and light and free of DRM. Because no corporation is ever going to use such technology to squeeze as much money as they can out of people or lock them in as their customers only. Darn you, you horrible media thieves! I bet you kick puppies too!

As much as I find this to be being blown out of proportion, his concern is valid.

Say you buy content using an android app and then decide to put it on another device. If the content gets DRMed and you can't read (as in the device read the file) it, you'll feel, to say the least, pissed.

I first became aware of the term DRM when iTunes first came onto the market. The fear was that 1 person would buy the content and then spread it world wide for free. The restrictions of DRM, along with the fact that there were many free apps to disable DRM, led Apple to essentially eliminate it from their music (not sure about their other content). To the OP, I have no idea how much it hogs resources or battery life.

I'm going to take a wild stab here in guessing you're basing that on pretty much no knowledge of the topic at all. I love opinions when they're firmly grounded in reliable data like guesses and personal feelings.

lol, whatever. This is a non issue for me. Sorry it's such a stick up your rear for you.

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